Reichardt | 2025 | UK, USA

I remember reading an interview with one or both of the Coen brothers in the aftermath of No Country For Old Men blowing everybody’s mind back in 2007. They were asked why they chose to set the story in the 80’s and their answer was simple: to not have to worry about cell phones making the story impossible to tell.

This floated to the front of my mind even as The Mastermind unfolded: this simply wouldn’t be as compelling if cell phones existed. In short, it would be too easy to avoid basically all of the obstacles encountered. And this is perhaps why such deceptively simple stories, out of time, compel us as we start the second quarter of a century defined by the ever-advancing creep of tech into our lives and psyches.

If verisimilitude can be considered a genre unto itself, carve this film onto its Mount Rushmore alongside films like Allied (the most compelling film Robert Zemeckis has made in the last couple of decades – and still largely underseen).

Josh O’Conner is an unbelievable talent now two-thirds of the way through a loose “bad art thief” trilogy that I’d very much like to see tied off one day. Maybe I’ll tie it off myself by watching this one again straight away.